Los Zafiros: Music From The Edge Of Time

Every purchase you make through these Amazon links supports DVD Verdict's reviewing efforts. Thank you!

All Rise...

Judge Victor Valdivia sips a mojito and smokes a Cuban cigar while dancing to Los Zafiros under a Havana moon. Or at least he'd like to.

The Charge

For those whose lives they briefly touched, Los Zafiros are legends.

Opening Statement

Los Zafiros: Music from the Edge of Time is a documentary about the
biggest pop group ever to emerge from Cuba in the 1960s. The film does a
credible job of telling the story of the band's rise and fall, and it's full of
great music and fascinating scenes even if it's not as thorough or comprehensive
as it could have been.

Facts of the Case

In the 1960s, Los Zafiros (the Sapphires) were the biggest band in Cuba and
most of Latin America. Their popularity in those regions ranked as high as the
Beatles or the Rolling Stones. In Europe, Los Zafiros toured the biggest concert
halls and drew massive crowds. Their intoxicating blend of mambo, calypso, bossa
nova, and doo-wop captured fans the world over and would endure far beyond the
band's lifetime. In fact, some forty years after their heyday, Los Zafiros'
music is more popular and influential than ever. Los Zafiros: Music from the
Edge of Time tells the story of the band's career through interviews,
photographs, and archival footage of the band in its prime. The film also
profiles the two surviving members of the group, Miguel Cancio and Manuel Galban
(who can also be seen as a member of the Buena Vista Social Club), and shows them
reuniting and playing some songs together one last time.

The Evidence

The story of Los Zafiros is, in many ways, the story of many classic rock and
R&B acts in American history. The group—which consisted of singers
Miguel Cancio, Eduardo "El Chino" Hernandez (who died in 1995),
Ignacio Elejalde (who died in 1981), Leoncio "Kike" Monrua (who died
in 1982), and guitarist/arranger Manuel Galban—came together in a tough
working-class neighborhood of Havana in 1962, emerged as megastars in the
mid-1960s, and broke up shortly thereafter. Tragic deaths, illness, and poverty
followed, and the band was forgotten for a while, but eventually, long after
their day, they enjoyed a resurgence in popularity. Today, as one Miami DJ
points out in the film, Zafiros records are played more at Latin stations than
they ever were in the '60s and more new fans are rediscovering their music now
than ever before.

By such standards, Los Zafiros' story is commonplace. What's significant is
their music. It's that music, that extraordinary mixture of traditional
Afro-Latin rhythms and American R&B and doo-wop, which would endure and
influence musicians for years to come. In the film, many interviewees explain
that Los Zafiros, virtually alone amongst Cuban musicians of the era, were
enamored of American R&B groups like the Platters, and the influence is
clearly visible in the footage of the band performing in matching slick suits
while dancing elaborately choreographed steps. That influence would also show up
in the band's intricate vocal harmonies and pop-flavored arrangements, and it
would allow Los Zafiros' music to reach younger, more rebellious audiences who
were turning away from the traditional mambo and salsa music of the era in favor
of the British and American rock and R&B bands which were then emerging.
Interviews with some Cuban musicians who were teenagers during the band's heyday
confirm that Los Zafiros was, for those teens, as crucial as any Motown or
British Invasion band of the day.

Los Zafiros tells this story through the two surviving members of the
band. Singer Miguel Cancio, who left Cuba in the 1990s and now lives in Florida,
founded the group and named them after his favorite sapphire ring. In the film,
he returns to Cuba and reunites with Manuel Galban, the band's guitarist and
musical arranger, who still lives and plays in Havana. We are shown many photos
and film clips of the band's heyday, and Galban and Cancio reminisce about the
history and lives of the members. They also take the time to visit surviving
family members of the three deceased singers and get together with some Cuban
musicians and singers to record new version of their classic songs. Some of
these scenes are touching and even painful, particularly the reunions, which
sometimes bring back together friends and family members who haven't seen each
other in as much as thirty years. The new performances are also worth seeing,
even if the re-recordings, as fantastic as they are, just can't hold a candle to
those magical original songs.

It's in telling the history of the band that Los Zafiros is sometimes
frustratingly vague. How exactly did Los Zafiros come together? We are only
given sketchy information. Why did the group tour Europe extensively but never
even come near the United States? No explanations are given, even after an
interview with the executive who scheduled acts at the Hollywood Bowl in which
he states how much he was blown away by their talent. How and why did the group
fall apart? All we get are fuzzy clichés about fame. In fact, we're not
even told what year they broke up. Although the film takes pains at the
beginning to outline a history of Cuba in the 1950s and 1960s, complete with
footage of Fidel Castro overthrowing Fulgencio Batista and continuing through
the Bay of Pigs and Cuban Missile Crisis, we are never told how Castro's rule
and life in Communist Cuba ever affected the band members. Did Castro's policies
ever make any difference in the band's career? Or their lives? No one says. Of
course, this is not a political story and Los Zafiros were never a political
group, but why bother to explain the political context of the story if it's just
going to be completely ignored for the rest of the film?

The film is at its most exasperating in detailing the tragic story of
Eduardo "El Chino" Hernandez. Hernandez was the star of the group, the
charismatic, swaggering sex symbol. He was not the group's best singer (that was
Ignacio Elejalde, possessor of one of the most remarkable voices in musical
history) but he was the one the crowds all came to see. One woman lovingly calls
Hernandez a "show-off," and explains that he was the reason why she
and all her friends went to watch the group perform. But in later years
Hernandez deteriorated into illness and depression. One sign of Hernandez's
failing mental health occurred when he began to reminisce in the press about a
meeting in a Paris hotel room in the mid-1960s between Los Zafiros and the
Beatles, a meeting that everyone else agreed could never have taken place
because both groups were never in the same city at the same time. In the
mid-1980s, Hernandez even put together a version of the band called Los Nuevos
Zafiros (the New Sapphires) in which he was the only original member. But Los
Nuevos Zafiros never enjoyed much more than second-rate success and Hernandez's
health slowly declined until his death in 1995. Why did Hernandez fall apart so
badly? Why did he feel the need to put together a fake tribute band that would
inevitably suffer in comparison to his original group? What caused his ill
health? And how did the other surviving Zafiros feel about the tribute group?
None of these questions are answered, or even asked.

Such complaints make Los Zafiros a lesser film than it could have
been. But they don't make it a bad film. For all its flaws, it does tell,
however imprecisely, the story of the rise and fall of the band. There's no
shortage of enthralling footage of the group performing its most classic songs.
There are fascinating photographs and some brief interview odds and ends with
the original band members in their prime. The scenes of the two surviving
Zafiros reuniting and reminiscing about their days in Cuba, meeting back up with
surviving family members of the remaining band, and getting together to play
some old songs are wonderful too. There simply is no other way of getting a
picture of the band's career and story, since Los Zafiros was, for a long time,
completely unknown outside of Cuban music circles. In its sometimes maddening
way, Los Zafiros is doing a service in finally telling this story and
introducing this music to many who would have never heard it before. Anyone who
has any interest in Latin music will find Los Zafiros worth seeing.

The film is presented in widescreen. The transfer is crisp and clear during
the modern footage, which was shot on video. The older songs, taken from TV
shows from the mid-'60s, are, of course, sometimes scratchy and grainy, and all
in black-and-white. Nonetheless, these performances are of such historical
importance that it's easy to overlook their less than stellar visual quality.
Almost all the interviews and songs are in Spanish, but English subtitles are
provided. The sound, in stereo, is crisp and clear, and allows even the oldest
songs to be heard clearly.

The disc is loaded with extras. First are the deleted scenes (39:14), which
consist mainly of reunion songs and performances left out of the finished film.
Most of these are enjoyable to watch, especially the rehearsals from the reunion
sessions, but the filmmakers were correct in leaving them out of the film, as
none of them are essential. The one exception is a beautiful acoustic
performance in which Cancio and Galban sit on a couch in Galban's living room
and sing "Maceo y Marti." The sight of the two remaining Zafiros
singing quietly together is so thrilling, and the song so touching, that it
seems a shame that this couldn't find its way into the film. There's also a
segment on Oscar Aguirre who was, for a few months, Los Zafiros' first guitarist
and wrote some of their biggest hits. Some fascinating tidbits, but also
probably not crucial.

In addition, there are bonus interviews (17:57), none of which,
unfortunately, fill in the holes left in the finished film. Instead, they mostly
tell the stories of Cuban musicians who toured and performed with Los Zafiros in
the 1960s. Again, some of the older footage of these artists is fun to watch,
but these scenes are not really integral to the story, especially since the
artists' memories of Los Zafiros themselves are often hazy.

For fans, the real treat will be the four complete performances by the
original band. The film only has two complete songs from the original group,
"Cuando Yo La Conoci" and "My Oracion." Here, we also get
"Y Sabes Bien" (2:40), "Rumba Como Quiera" (2:42),
"Congo Leri" (3:08), and "Pituca La Bella" (5:38). Taken,
again, from old mid-'60s TV shows, these are not in the best quality, full of
grain and scratches ("Congo Leri," in particular, is in especially
rough shape), but are so important, historically, that it's surprising they
weren't included in some form in the main feature. One would assume that footage
of Los Zafiros performing would be essential for a documentary, so it seems
strange that the filmmakers did not use more of these clips.

The disc also includes selections from 1960s Cuban variety shows (5:36).
These consist of a couple of songs and an announcement for a big concert. One of
the songs, performed by a group called Los Dorados (the Golden Ones), is a
tough, rock-influenced song that's worth seeing. The other performance, a
novelty number by a duo called Maricusa & Ramon, will amuse retro-kitsch
enthusiasts and irritate the hell out of everyone else. If Los Zafiros were the
Cuban Beatles, then these guys were apparently the Cuban Herman's Hermits. Even
more fodder for retro-kitsch enthusiasts will be the collection of 1950s and
1960s Cuban TV commercials (5:14), advertising everything from soap to record
players. Theyâre fun to watch even if you don't speak a word of Spanish.
Finally, the DVD also includes the film's theatrical trailer (1:46).

Closing Statement

Los Zafiros: Music from the Edge of Time is a must-see for anyone
interested in Latin music, especially fans of Buena Vista Social Club. The storytelling
is sometimes sloppy and incomplete, and the film sometimes spends too much time
on trivia at the expense of important information, but in the end, the film's
good points outweigh its bad ones.

The Verdict

Los Zafiros: Music from the Edge of Time is convicted of the lesser
charge of not being as meticulous and all-inclusive as it could have been, but
is otherwise acquitted by virtue of telling a compelling story and having lots
of incredible music.

Give us your feedback!

Did we give Los Zafiros: Music From The Edge Of Time a fair trial? yes / no

What's "fair"? Whether positive or negative, our reviews should be unbiased, informative, and critique the material on its own merits.